Page 123 of To Free a Soul
It was wonderful.He was being wonderful, and that was the problem.It was so good that I thought I was going to melt.Even now her body thrummed with satisfaction, singing from all the perfect touches, caresses, and thorough pounding.
Her lips trembled and her voice cracked when she said, “I don’t want to pretend anymore.”
Her pulse raced at that realisation, and it bled poison into her veins. Her skin was cold, but she was burning up, and she wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep so she didn’t have to deal with how she was feeling.
“Pretend? Lindiwe... I do not understand.”
Clenching her eyes shut and curling her hands into tight fists, she shouted. “Of course you don’t! What could an emotionless, heartlessdemi-godknow about how ahumanwould feel?!”
“I have done all I can to meet your expectations,” he answered, his tone finally holding some substance. Cold annoyance. “It’s unfair of you to state otherwise. I’m not devoid of emotions, as you so callously throw at me, and you know that.”
“But it’s not enough!” she yelled, finally tossing her head to the side to look at him. She hated the way tears continued to fall, but her rage, the vengeance she felt forherself, for her bruised and battered heart, fuelled her forward. “You react withangerbecause you think you have been wronged or disrespected. You experiencedesirebecause it is entertaining, because it gives you something to look forward to. You know sadness and sympathy because it islogical.Your loneliness comes from wanting to fill the utter emptiness around you.”
His expression didn’t flinch, but his mist did pull in tighter. “That is very true. Ifeelthrough my mind.”
“That is not true feeling! That’s a façade of the consciousness.” She darted forward, incidentally making him pull back in surprise, until she placed her palm over the left side of his chest. Her fucking hand ghosted through him. “You don’t have a beating heart. You don’t know what it feels like to have it bleeding out in your chest as you yearn for impossible things from an impossible being.”
“I have tried for you. Is that not enough?” He created space between them and waved his clawed right hand through the air, as if to gesture to some unknown thing. “I have attempted to be a fitting mate.”
“Because logic tells you to! Because, as you once said, affection allows for a cohesive bond.”
Weldir growled asheshunted forward, his nose crinkling andfinallyshowing an emotion. “I do care for you, Lindiwe. I have grown very fond of you over these years, and I have attempted to make that known.”
“I know that! I’m not a fucking idiot. But you experience it all the same way. Your anger, lust, affection, dedication, and care all come from the same place. It doesn’t exist within the real, living world.”
“It exists to me!” he roared.
“Because you are not real!” she screamed and pointed to the ether. “I don’t belong in your lifeless, lightless void! I can’tlivehere, and you can’t exist in my world, thelivingworld.”
His tone became deflated and almost sounded... hurt. “That’s not fair, Lindiwe.”
It wasn’t fair. She also knew it wasn’t his fault.
I love you. I love you so much, and it pains me every single day because you can’t be with me.
Weldir couldn’t change. He couldn’t suddenly grow a body and join her, and that was heartbreaking. She wanted it more than anything. She wanted to share her world with him, walk in it with him, holding his hand and feeling warmth in his touch as he felt the sun, air, and grass. Smelt the trees, the dirt, and the flowers. To experience what cold rain felt like on a hot summer’s day, or the sun warming him from the outside in on a winter’s morning.
Pretending that it was one day possible was slowly killing her. She yearned for it with every passing day of thethousandsthat they had distantly spent together.
And I can’t tell you that.There was utterly nopointin telling Weldir that she somehow, foolishly, had fallen in love with him. That she wanted a proper life with him where he wasn’t in some faraway, unknown realm made up of shadowy, dark ether.
A cruel, lonely, and sad space just for him.
Lindiwe didn’t know if he loved her, if he could even experience the true, wonderful depth of it. If he did feel it in some semblance, then she didn’t want to know.
She didn’t want this to be even more painful than it already was. For her, and for him too.
Because she knew one thing for certain: love wasn’t supposed tohurt.
It could be saddening and frustrating. It could have moments of jealousy and possessiveness. It should always be filled with comfort, affection, and soft caresses. There would be fights, and there would be times of weakness and selfishness. There could be aches and pangs.
But it shouldn’t feel like this.
It shouldn’t feel like her heart was on fire and sending flames into her bloodstream. Her chest shouldn’t feel so tight she thought she was strangling on every breath.
It shouldn’t be this absent and lonely.
It shouldn’t feel this distant, where he could feel nothing and she had to feel for both of them for... forever. Alone, and never truly sharing that sensual bond, something that Lindiwe craved every day with him, with no solution in sight. Especially when he spent so much of their time slumbering and leaving her to experience every aching second of life.
